Proposed Staten Island Ferris Wheel and Visibility Experiment

  In the above map, I used GRASS 6.4.1  Terrain Analysis feature it see what the visibility would be from the highest point on the proposed ferris wheel (625 Feet, 190.625 Meters) to the street surface.  I brought in our New York City Elevaton file (legend to the left) and a subway stop and line vector file.  The proposed location of the Ferris Wheel is near the St. George Terminal of the Staten Island Railroad.  I do not have an exact location and my program will allow me only to make a projection of 200,000 meters.  The result is the bluish circle near the tip of Staten Island.  A passenger in a cab at the highest position (625 Feet) would be able to see the street surface in Bay Ridge Brooklyn up to 4th Avenue.  In Staten Island, the passenger could not see much of the street surface south of the wheel because the elevation south of the proposed ferris wheel is quite high.  For the ferris wheel, I used coordinates x= 961859.25, y=175189.3 which is using the same projection as the elevation file.  This is only an experiment.

In the above map, the range was increased to 200,000 meters.  The blue area are those areas where the street surface is visible from the top of the proposed ferris wheel which will be located in the St. George Section of Staten Island (at the center of the circle).  Notice that big sections of Bay Ridge and Sunset Park in Brooklyn will have their surface areas visible including lower Manhattan and even parts of Boro Park near the Washington Cemetary.  The area south of the ferris wheel will not be visible but areas to the west will be visible because of lower elevations near the north shore of the island.  Perhaps in the future, a passenger on the elevated "F" train (culver line) will catch a glipse of the wheel when the train approaches the Bay Parkway station.